On March 1st, the revised “Enforcement Rules of the Aviation Safety Act” entered into force. As a result, the scope of pilots obliged to obtain certificates has expanded from business drone pilots to all drone pilots.

A total of 14 drone accidents were reported to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport from 2016 to August 2020. However, it was difficult to identify the actual status of the accidents under the existing Enforcement Rules of the Aviation Safety Act since those who owned drones weighing less than 12kg were not obliged to register their aircraft. Besides, before the revision, only a few pilots needed a certificate, those with drones weighing more than 12kg and less than 150kg or those with drones for business. To improve the situation, the so-called "Drone Real-name System" was implemented. One of the system is the "Fuselage Reporting System," which took effect on January 1st. This is a revision to the Enforcement Rules of the Aviation Safety Act, which requires everyone who owns a drone weighing more than two kilograms to report their aircraft. All names, contacts, addresses, and information on the fuselage must be registered. Otherwise, the drone owner may be sentenced to up to 6 months in prison or fined up to 5 million won.

The other part of the "Drone Real-name System" is the "Differentiation of Pilot Qualifications," which took effect on March 1st. This is another revision of the Aviation Safety Act following the revision on January 1st, and its main point is that every drone pilot is obliged to obtain a certificate regardless of whether the pilot has a business drone or a non-business drone. The pilot certification varies from type one to type four according to the weight of the drone. Type four can be acquired just by completing online education. In contrast, type one to type three require recognition of flight experience time and completion of theoretical evaluations. Practical evaluation is also required for obtaining type one and type two.

Park Jung-Soo (Prof. of Unmanned and Autonomous Vehicle Engineering, Kyungwoon University) said, “The drone real-name system will make Korea safer by allowing us to check whether drones used in real life work reliably. Especially, existing drone certificates were not enough in terms of power and utilization because they could easily be obtained by receiving a certain amount of education and practice at private education centers. Therefore, Differentiation of Pilot Qualifications is essential to enhance individual drone flying skills and to revitalize the drone industry. Furthermore, Differentiation of Pilot Qualifications may increase the utility of drone certificates and create jobs that require drone qualification in more diverse fields.”